General Vladimir Popovkin blamed the finance ministry for its slow funding of the project, saying his Russian Space Agency disagreed with the way its budget was being allocated.

"We must begin to invest now so that the rocket can be launched in 2008," Popovkin told a press conference.

"We are in disagreement with the finance ministry," he added of the latter's decision to reserve the Angara's final funding tranche until 2007.

The head of the Khrunichev center which is developing the Angara rocket, Alexander Medvedev, said in June last year that its rocket would be ready by

Popovkin said the Plessetsk cosmodrome in northwest Russia was getting almost all of the space program budget.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered that 90 percent of the budget for development be earmarked for Plessetsk, which will ultimately replace the Baikonur space base in Kazakhstan as Russia's rocket launch site, he said.

Russia currently leases Baikonur from Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic, and is planning to abandon the site within a few years.

The Angara, which will launch from Plessetsk, is being touted as the replacement for the powerful Proton rockets and a future star of Russia's space industry.

It will serve as the main launcher for Russian military satellites.

Unlike the Proton, which is propelled using a toxic carburant, the Angara will use a "clean" fuel made from liquid oxygen and kerosene.

SPACE.WIRE